Smart Touch Elite Stylus

It is no lie that I am a slave to my touch screen technology.  My iPad and iPhone4 both have capacitive touch screen which means they need my actual finger to make them work.

Total Merchandise (http://www.totalmerchandise.co.uk/) sent me a Smart Touch Elite Stylus to test and review for Splodz Blogz.  This is a stylus that has a special end that means it works on capacitive touch screens like my iPad and iPhone, perfect for tapping and scrolling instead of using your finger.  It is a corporate gift product, one that can be personalised with your business name and website/telephone number or slogan on, to give to customers or clients.

It’s a small pen – and it is actually a rollerball pen, which writes very nicely and smoothly – with a rubbery tip on one end that is the stylus.  It’s about 12cm long so is very portable (fits inside your pocket) and has a metal shell.  It’s a neat, nice looking product.  In fact, mine fits inside my Golla Lemmy iPad case with my iPad and its Smart Cover.

The rubbery stylus tip is rounded and squishy.  On first look I wondered how accurate it would be – the tip is quite large (you can see it spread when I put my finger on the end in the photograph on the left).  But actually, for tapping and scrolling on the touch screen it’s just perfect.  I soon found I was reaching for this instead of using my finger, especially on my iPad – it seemed easier to use somehow.

One obvious advantage of using this is that it keeps finger prints off the screen – a never ending battle with glass screens.  Apart from that, using a stylus like this one instead of your finger tip means you’re not covering up anything on the screen at any point – this means that selecting text is much easier, doodling little pictures is more fun (although this isn’t great for fine art or anything like that because it’s a large tip), and playing card games is faster.  I also find it great for tapping away on the keyboard on both my iPhone and my iPad.

And now I can use my touch screen devices while wearing my motorbike gloves!

I have just one small criticism about the Smart Touch Elite Stylus.  Because of the rubber stylus tip you can’t put the pen lid on the top of the pen when using the rollerball end – I’m gonna lose that lid one day soon!

I’m sure there are more accurate stylus products around (this is the only stylus I have tried so far).  This one isn’t very useful for (and has not been designed for) “proper” drawing, for example.  But this is a great entry level product for most touch screen functions.  And for businesses wanting their name on something that is a slightly more unusual or quirky gift than the promotional pen or pencil, then this is a great idea.  It’s certainly a corporate gift that would get used by anyone with a touch screen.

The Smart Touch Elite Stylus is available in black, white or silver (I rather like the look of the white one), and can be personalised, of course.  Each stylus comes in at between £2.99 and £4.45 depending on quantity ordered (minimum order 50).

Total Merchandise is a promotional merchandise company offering corporate gifts and other personalised items.  Follow them on twitter @TM_LTD_UK for info and friendly conversation.